Given the slip, part 1

About seven or eight years ago, I bought a kit from a vendor at a train show for a double-slip switch, and it's rattled around in the bottom of a tool box ever since. This week, I finally get around to giving it a shot.

The ties are made of PCB strip that must be cut to length, which I marked with a chisel. The kit was made by Scaleway, a UK company, but the template is downloaded from the Fast Tracks web site.

Then on to the tedious job of hacking all those ties up. An easily-made cutting board with a fence gave me a stable work surface that held the PCB so I could saw through it in one stroke, speeding the task up quite a bit.

Once all the ties are cut, I smeared the template, protected by a layer of packing tape, with white glue and pressed the ties into place.

... then set it aside to let it dry.

Next: Cutting and filing the rails.

Tim Warris' Bronx Terminal

Tim Warris is modeling the Bronx Terminal. I ran across his web page while I was searching for tips and how-to's on laying track by soldering them to PCB ties, a technique I'm trying to earn. Warris is using the same technique to model the terminal's intricate track plan, and he started with what looks like the most insanely complicated triple-lapped turnout ever conceived. He even modeled it in N-scale just for display!

If you go, be sure to click on the link to take you to the earliest post. You won't be disappointed.

Putting My College Education to Work

Yours truly holds a bachelor's degree in the liberal arts, and of the electives I took to earn that sheepskin, several involved dirtying card paper with acrylic paint.

Now, decades later, I was faced with the problem: How do I paint the roof of this RPO when the commercially-produced Tamiya paint I bought for the job sucks? (It really does. Don't waste your money.)

As it happened, my tool box held several tubes of acrylic paint I bought from an art shop to paint some signs, probably for a garage sale, and there was still more than enough Mars black to see if I could still remember how to mix paint with water.

You know what? This stuff is leagues better than bottled paint, and a teensy dab goes a long, long way. Fussing with getting the right mix of paint to water is hardly any trouble at all, and even rewarding when it comes out just exactly right.

Of course, it's pretty easy for me to brag when I'm using black straight out of the tube. I'd probably be a frustrated wreck sucking on a bottle of grain alcohol in a dark corner if I'd tried to mix maroon on my quaint little tea saucer.

It's my first baby step.

Switches are a perfect example of how I suck at track planning.

I drew the curve, then the tangent, and measured the divergent angle. It's a #6 turnout. If I place my Shinohara #6 turnout over the sketch with the frog at the tangent point, it looks like it ought to be a number six. But if I connect the flex track to the switch and try to make it fit, there's no way.

I haven't the slightest idea how to figure out what number switch I'll need without physically owning the switch, connecting it to flex track, and laying it on the bench. Then, and only then, will I have a solid idea what number I'll need to make everything fit. It's the Lionel method of track planning: Piece it together until you find what works.